#and their evil decisions

[eri-pl]

Silm reread 8 Flight of the Noldor.

Yavanna cannot make the Trees again because That's How Things Work. At least we get a clear statement (again) that she did create their light, so sorry musicals, the Trees did not contain the Flame Imperishable. (I know in one abandoned later revision they kind of maybe did, but also it is like nails on chalkboard to me)

And Yavanna says that their harm would be undone and Melkor's evil would not reach its goal. Very Yavanna thing to say, very "where's the undo button". I'm not a fan. Like, I get her and it's not evil or smth… but… sorry, my pretty green lady, this doesn't work like this.

Tulkas. Can't you just sit still? (No, he can't.)

"Not the first one"! This line always makes me smile, it's just so "random oneliners to say". (I don't think Namo is rude, I think he's just quite alien and doesn't understand CoI and their psychology)

Despite being left to brood in silence, Feanor is paranoid anyway. :(

Capital D Darkness again — it's Ungoliant's stuff.

Finwë died on the threshold of Formenos — defending the house, but it is assumed, I think, because everyone else ran away. Either he had a weapon in hand, or they just assumed he was not trying to run away. Anyway nvm the narrative frame, the indent is that he was defending the house, so ok, why not. Very brave of him.

Feanáro curses a lot:

curses Melkor and renames him

curses Manwë's summons (so it was Manwë who ordered him to come? This would be some overstepping. I'll assume it was Manwë inviting him personally to come and Ingwë ordering him. Or just Manwë ordering him to come not as his ruler, but as ruler of this land, like "if you want any chance to be unbanned from Tirion, you must come")

curses the hour when he left home (very puzzling thing to do imo, but it is a genre thing I suppose)

Melkor wanted to kill Feanor mostly. So the book says. i am honestly surprised he didn't— oh wait. Maybe putting the Silmarils on his face and the pain was what made him shift from "kill Feanáro and his kin" to… well, all those stuff he did with Maedhros.

Morgoth can't ditch the spider. :D I suppose this confirms that now he is fixed in his body. She calls him Black Heart (derogatory, I suppose?) which nobody else does. It is kind of cute when your overgrown ex-pet murder spider has a pet name for you. :P

The "I rule the worls" stuff. I think this is the first time we see him say it (at least in the well-established canon timeline).

The Silmarils are in a box, and they still start burning him. So:

the burning increases or at least increases until it reaches its full level

they are small enough and Morgoth is big enough that he can hold the box with them all in his hand (right. does it have any meaning?)

It's confirmed that Morgoth had given Ungoliant some of his power and she'd grown and he'd lessenned. I assume it was during their initial negotiations.

She puts a web on him if not a full cocoon. The Balrogs have to free him with the flaming ...I forgot the word.

Also, the Balrogs were hiding in the deep dungeons after Angband, which suggests they did not work for/with Sauron. they seem very much like Morgoth's private guard. Also, they free him without question despite the fact that he seems pretty weak at this point.

The Balrogs have no problem chasing away Ungoliant, I attribute it to their connection with light (or at least fire. But fire is a kind of light, even their fire).

Yavanna was afraid that the Silmarils would be eaten by the darkness. this sounds very much like her.

Morgoth:

calls himself king of the world (the contrast of this and his situation...)

his hands are permanently black with burns and always in pain (which angers him even more)

also his crown seems to hurt him

seriously what is wrong with you?

you need therapy

seriously is insane at this point

also has a super powerful aura of fear

The Valar sit and (think, I guess), their courts (Maiar and Vanyar) cry about the Trees, the Noldor go back to Tirion. Suddenly Feanor. Who technically is still banished, which I think is more of a case of "the Valar had other priorities and he didn't ask" or "we aren't going to let him back to his brother in this state of emotions because there wil be more murders" than "revenge for not giving the Silmarils o Yavanna".

Also, now, of all times, is when many of the Noldor learn about the Men being a thing. Because before that Melkor told a few in secret and tehy apparently told Feanáro in secret… Peak unfortune timing. Peak planning on Melkor's side (not that he could now appraciate it).

Also, in Polish it's not "jealous gods", but "jealous Valar" which is interesting, but I think it makes sense. Still, it is out-Tolkiening the Tolkien I think.

Oh. Another part I need in English, because it's so important.

After Morgoth to the ends of the Earth! War shall he have and hatred undying. But when we have conquered and have regained the Silmarils that he stole, then behold! We, we alone, shall be the lords of the unsullied Light, and masters of the bliss and the beauty of Arda! No other race shall oust us!’ [src]

Oh my. It is so much.

First, it is obvious that "reclaim the Silmarils" is (in his mind) the relatively easy, or at least short, part.

Second: "We, we alone, shall be the lords of the unsullied Light, and masters of the bliss and the beauty of Arda!" I don't think this needs any comments.

Aaaand then they swear the Oath.

It's just one huge downward spiral, and he talks himself into it. Yes, trauma, but why are you pouring gasoline on it??? They all need… a lot. And to stop pouring gasoline on everything.

Fefe. I am so dissapointed with you. I am sad. I don't have the words for this. Also, you hate Morgoth, but you two are so similar sometimes.

Oh, and in the Silm they do not call Eru, they call the Everlasting Darkness to claim them if they break their oath. At least according to the translation. also, yes, revenge and hatered is mentioned, but no requirement to succeed in killing the offenders.

Galadriel is enthusiastic about Feanáro's plans, even though she dislikes him. :P

Manwë is silent, because he doesn't want to stop Feanor. Because he careas about the Noldor feeling enslaved! At least the translation says it pretty clearly. They (the Valar, or at least M&V) sit and watch, hoping that the Noldor will calm down.

Politics, politics… Fingolfin goes because Fingon, and the people, and he promised. Mentioned in this order.

90% of all the Noldor go (to Alqualonde and north, it's unclear how many came back with Finarfin). I wonder if it is of all the Noldor or just of the male Noldor. Because most of the women seem to stay.

Eonwë (not named, but seems like him. Technically it may be another Maia) comes to give them advice. Just an advice. Explicitely says that the Valar will not stop them and they came freely, they can leave freely.

Finarfin and Finrod and all the "wisest of Noldor" are in the back and carry a lot of stuff. Good for them.

Túna was nearly at the equator! Oh. interesting. They are very, very far from the Helcaraxe, and I assume nobody invited navigation without seeing the shores (sorry I don't know the English one word term for this). So they have a logistics problem.

The Teleri seem to refuse any help because they don't want to go against the Valar. Even though the Valar did not forbid it, they just said it was a bad idea. The Teleri just trust them, because Ulmo is cool. Also, they don't have much experience with Morgoth and assume "the Valar will fix it all".

An arguement ensues.

Fefe leaves, broods, and returns to Alqualonde when he has enough army. Then he starts seizing the ships. The Teleri push the Noldor to water, a fight ensues. Fingon join them and assumed that the Teleri were ordered by the Valar to stop the Noldor and attacked them. So, Finarfin and his team was not there. Fingolfin might not be at the battle either?

Olwë calls Ossë for help (so, he did survive), and we have the hilarious "I can't because the Valar forbade us to stop the Noldor. However, my wife, who has a clear recorc, will drown them with her crying anyway."

Blatant ad for the Maglor. "…for more details, see the Noldolante…" This is hilarious.

so they all go far, and it takes a long time. Some (most trusted by Feanor) go on the ships, other on foot. they travel from the equator to, idk, but a pretty cold area.

And only then, after probably weeks of travel, they get Namo(or is it?) and the Doom of the Noldor. (I need to correct one of my fics. This fact makes it 3 times more hilarious. even with the Maiarin teleportation).

Finarfin comes back, and he walks all the distance back. Has a lot of time to think, I guess. Many elves join him, but no number estimates or percentages. :(

The rest go further north.

Helcaraxe was assumed impassable. So no, nobody could predict Fingolfin would led his people there.

This was a very, very long chapter.

[sha-brytols]

cannot be stressed enough the horribly shady way bioware did their damndest to keep the shitty worldstate for veilguard a secret. like there's a reason why during those hype streams there was literally only one person who showed the inquisitor screen and it was an Accident. the guy that leaked the 4 choices thing said himself he thought it was actually abysmal of them to keep it from the public because of how much everyones hype was dependent on certain plot threads being resolved and he felt like it would have been too unfair and dishonest not to tell people. this was less than a month before the game was set to come out btw

[thylacid]

could not sleep last night cause i was busy thinking about how funny it'd be for loop to come back on a onehat ending

[jayktoralldaylong]

I love that the villain of Mouthwashing is not some outer space monster, it's not a science experiment broken free from a lab, it's not even a man with an obvious stereotypical mental illness.

It's a man with self esteem problems. A selfish cowardly man who so badly wanted to be praised for doing the bare minimum. A man who let envy bite through the hand that fed him. Cause sometimes the worst monsters are the ones that are the most human. And everyone died and suffered because one man (Curly this time) kept making excuses for that one weak link (Jimmy).

I also love that the crew in Mouthwashing didn't die because Jimmy went around hacking them up. They died because of his poor leadership decisions. The leadership that he so badly believed that he could do better than Curly.

- Anya was already stressed out from the assault and she was on the edge of a mental breakdown, Jimmy responded to that by shouting at her. 💀 Girl chugged down that pill bottle like it was water.

- Daisuke was an intern, he just did whatever he was told, eager to impress Jimmy. Jimmy says climb the vents, Daisuke climbed the vents. The vents collapsed on Daisuke.

Jimmy then tries to disinfect the wound with Mouthwashing, mind you Anya had earlier mentioned that using the chemical would only make wounds worse. Swansea reminded him of this. Jimmy ignores him. Proceeds to aggravate Daisuke's wounds so bad they Swansea has to mercy kill him.

- Swansea is an old man and 'life in prison' does not mean so much to him anymore. Plus, Jimmy has stepped on his last nerve. Swansea tries to kill Jimmy. Jimmy shoots him.

A domino of events that look like accidents, all avoidable if Jimmy listened, if Jimmy calmed down, if Jimmy did not act so darned arrogant and demanding all the darn time. And now he's left in a ship of corpses, but Curly is still there........

So Jimmy does what he does best.

He blames Curly (and then Jimmy finally has a mental breakdown).

[hamletthedane]

Love that Oppenheimer is a deeply disturbing horror movie about a man forced to accept that he is, in a person, the representative manifestation of mankind’s evil in committing one of the greatest horrors of human history - LITERALLY acting as the modern Prometheus, tormented by his sins for the remainder of time. Knowing that he will never be pitied and his actions will forever be utterly unforgivable because the blood of genocide and the potential of total human annihilation will eternally drip from his hands.

But also the simultaneous indictment by the film that to blame a single person for the Manhattan Project is to refuse to accept your own capacity for great evil if the ends ever seem to justify the means, and the culpability of every member of a species that lets itself create something so unspeakably terrible.

Hate that twitter’s take on such a nuanced and brilliantly handled examination of those issues is “movie bad because protagonist not evil enough.”

[desired-misery]

Consider this:

This is Leon's last game. Not because he is going to die, but because Grace figures out the blackmailing that has held Leon hostage since RC. She finds out that Leon is another, different kind of victim from RC.

She saves him. Leon is finally released from being forced to work. A federal agent (like a cop), a young blonde, saves him from a world that has been using and haunting him since 1998. He can retire. He is finally allowed to rest.

[tallymali]

not a very fun time to be one of the people who paid attention in history class ngl

[playerkingsley]

the throughline of “little lies are ok” and “lying is ok if it helps your friends and family, but you’ve got to tell the truth about lying” and the shared domain of trickery between the main instigator and adversary of the calamity, asmodeus, and the moonweaver, who takes the first steps to define (and weave, if you will) the new relationship between divinity and those left behind on the material plane, all culminating to sehanine then wielding this aspect of illusion and untruths they share and literally slapping her brother back to the pit of the hells? perfection, absolutely no notes

[screwpinecaprice]

Evil Steven maybe? 乁⁠(⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠ര⁠ ⁠ʖ̯⁠ ⁠ര⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠)⁠ㄏ...

Lmao well that was at the back of my mind while sketching this ngl.

The amount of influence and power you have when practically everyone likes you; on top of that you have one of the highest political position just handed down at you just like that? Idk It might be at least a liiiittle fun to use it for evil. Haha So. Like. There's a backstory for context at least.

Just wasn't sure if this is an AU or a human AU though (Which is why Connie has glasses there.

[bvckbiter]

fandom talks too little about hylla and reyna. reyna killed her father when she thought he'd killed hylla. hylla dragged them out of puerto rico and found them sanctuary and employment on circe's island AND became one of circe's favorites. then when they got captured by blackbeard hylla also got them out of that situation by out-pirating literal immortal pirates. then in a span of three years, they split up, found their own ways to the amazons and cj, and became the leaders of their respective factions. when hylla's queenship was being threatened by otrera in son, she plotted a counter-coup and defeated an amazon queen who couldn't die two nights in a row in one-on-one combat, THEN led her cavalry to camp jupiter. (ik this woman slept like a corpse for a week afterwards). hylla used reyna as an absolutely ruthless bait-and-switch to capture orion, and all reyna said in response to that was, "bet." reyna carries insurmountable amounts of both guilt and gratitude towards her sister. even though they havent seen each other in a while, hylla still drops everything and does everything in her power to save her baby sister when she knows reyna needs her.

[thepinkpestilence]

I will never take people serious who heavily dislike or even outright hate any of the stark kids and/or dany. from all asoiaf characters, you decided to have beef with traumatized preteens and kids from elementary school? grow up.

[corviiids]

tbh au where L just doesn't seem to zero in on light as kira at all and light is smug at first but then starts to get increasingly frustrated as L keeps taking swings and missing completely. gets kinda close and then announces the biggest suspect is sayu yagami. don't worry about the older one, he's just an ordinary boy. L never even makes contact. light's dropping signs and L is picking them up but completely misinterpreting them. light's like this guy's a fucking idiot lmfao?? i could get away with this forever. but then he gets bored with no one to play with and he's irritated that L keeps giving credit to every random idiot for being kira. light starts dropping more and more brazen clues trying to see if this stupid detective can take a hint and then L arrests him off the massive trail of evidence he's been leaving for months

[hurrakka]

Those 2 am intrusive thoughts really be kickin in

[netbug009]

As a "Caine really does mean well" truther the forshadowy vibe of this conversation is going to HAUNT me.

[raviposting]

You can still criticize Watcher and all three of the guys without being absolute freaks about Steven Lim. Btw

[doctahchang]

kathryn janeway my favourite heroine of a greek tragedy

song is alt-j - philadelphia